Nate is back, and is dragging behind him a team that seems to be lacking direction, having lost 10 consecutive games. How would you like to have to sell season tickets for that team? At least there is hope in Sonicsland.
For your pre-game feast, indulge on Kevin Pelton's Insider Preivew. Your appetizer from KP:
The Blazers own the league's worst offense, posting an Offensive Rating of 102.0 points per 100 possessions, 1.5 worse than any other team in the league. Portland is also 29th of the 30 NBA teams in Defensive Rating. That's meant a number of tough games, including 13 losses by 20 points or more.
After a season of reading both KP's Insider Previews and other teams' pre-game articles, I have really begun to appreciate how much better the product the Sonics (KP) put forth in this area than nearly every other team in the NBA. Kudos to the Sonics for giving a job to Pelton and letting him run with these kinds of things.
If you would like some additional pre-game reading, there is an interesting interview with Nick Collison over at RealGM.com.
Another article of note is from SI.com - Will ownership meeting yeild sale of Sonics? Not a lot of new info, but it's getting national attention.